As someone who's been doing digital painting for a long LONG time, and who feels like she's only very recently gotten good at it. I thought I'd write a bit about how I got here and the process of learning how to paint without any formal training in school or otherwise. I started learning photoshop when I was about fourteen years old, and I was instantly hooked. However I had no idea how to use the real tools available and was far more interested in painting something and then adding one million lens flares and other effects and then calling it good. This was not the right way to approach painting or making decent artwork. See example below of OLD stuff I